Steel Structure Design of Wenzhou Culture and Art Building

Wenzhou Culture and Art Building is about 48 m high, with a total construction area of 20 543 m², with 8 floors above ground and 1 floor underground. The whole structure adopts steel frame and central support structure system. The space layout inside the building is very complex which contains Xinhua bookstore, theater and rehearsal room of Wenzhou Yue Opera Troupe. There is a small theater in the center of the building on the third floor. The large span over the theater is 22.8 m, and there is a large floor splice in this floor. Due to the building's atrium, multiple elevators and staircases, there are many openings on each floor, and the width of the floor slabs on the fourth floor reaches about 60% of the total floor width. There are some problems in the building structure, such as discontinuous floor, uneven mass distribution of each floor and irregular torsion.
The measures taken were as follows:1) on the premise of satisfying the use function of the building, the support between columns were reasonably arranged to solve the torsion and irregularity of the structure; 2) the thickness of the fifth floor was thickened to 150 mm and rebar distribution rate was improved appropriately. Closed horizontal supports were set around the large-scale slab hole and the section of steel beams around the slab hole were strengthened to enhance the plane stiffness. The additional oblique rebar was set in the corner of the slab hole; 3) in the theater on the third floor, steel beams were set along the inclination of the stands. In the music pool, the elevation of the floor changes greatly so that slabs were set on the both flanges of the steel beam. The oblique steel plate was fixed in the joint between griders with different altitude, where griders on the both sides of the column. On the roof of the theater, H-section steel griders with large-size welded were set up.
The results showed that the lateral stiffness of the building and the in-plane stiffness of the floor slab could be guaranteed by such measures as the arrangement of staggered columns, the arrangement of horizontal struts around the large opening of the floor slab, the arrangement of axels and vertical trusses, and the structure arrangement could meet the functional requirements and achieve a better architectural effect.